


You always lie so sweetly, I'm still letting sugar dissolve on my tongue

by Atlanta_Black



Series: And it's fucked up, but I'm falling verse [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, F/M, Pre-Relationship, author is bad tagging, ginny is angry, introspective ginny weasley, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21711409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/pseuds/Atlanta_Black
Summary: It starts as most stories do, with a girl. A girl and a book and a curse.A girl who’s grown up always feeling just a little too ignored. A book that holds secrets no one should ever know. A curse dressed up to look like a blessing, like a promise, like hope.It starts with a plea. It ends with a promise....Installment six in the And It's Fucked up Verse
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley
Series: And it's fucked up, but I'm falling verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1521761
Comments: 7
Kudos: 103





	You always lie so sweetly, I'm still letting sugar dissolve on my tongue

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically before the first installment timeline wise. I really wanted to do an introspective one for Ginny so here we are!
> 
> I'm not 100% happy with the ending but it be like that really. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

It starts as most stories do, with a girl. A girl and a book and a curse. 

A girl who’s grown up always feeling just a little too ignored. A book that holds secrets no one should ever know. A curse dressed up to look like a blessing, like a promise, like hope. 

It starts with a plea. It ends with a promise. 

⬷

She grows up with bruised knees and scraped palms. Grows up knowing she is so, so loved. That should have been enough to prevent it. To make her hesitate, to make the foreshadowing whispering down her spine matter. 

It was not. 

Once upon a time a diary was slipped into the cauldron of a little girl. A little girl with flaming, straight hair and mischief lingering in the corners of her smile. We know this story. Know the story of the damsel in distress and the boy hero who saves her. 

They will tell you that she was tricked. That she was lost from the first moment that she touched the diary. How could she ever stand a chance against him? 

This is not that story. 

⬷

Let’s be clear. Ginny Weasley is eleven years old. She’s not stupid and she’s knows that when an inanimate object speaks back to you, you tell an adult. 

She’s not stupid but still, she tells no one. 

There’s a moment, in between the black words curling over the paper and Tom smiling at her for the first time, where she looks at the book and hates it. Looks at the book and tells herself she’s going to get rid of it. A moment where, her destiny is still held firmly in her own hands and not held in Tom’s. Where it’s not tied around her throat like a noose, dragging her closer to her own downfall. 

It starts with a plea. With Ginny pressing the tip of her quill onto the page hard enough that the ink bleeds everywhere. With her asking  _ Why, why does no one ever see me? _

The words sink into the pages while Ginny stares, eyes wide, cheeks still flushed from the anger burning through her. 

_ I see you. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone clearer. _ __   
__   
Now that she’s older she knows she had never stood a chance. She’d been lost from the beginning and to say otherwise was her trying to fool herself into feeling better. 

Her hands are trembling when she writes back. Fingers clenched around the quill in a way that would have her mum frowning at her.  _ Who are you? _ She writes back, still telling herself that she’s going to go to an adult. She knows the adults won’t tell her what this is. It can’t hurt to find out before she goes and tells someone. 

_ My name is Tom Riddle. It is an honest pleasure to meet you. _ The words curl across the paper. Ginny traces the curl of the y’s and chews on her lip until it bleeds. 

_ My name is Ginevra Weasley but I go by Ginny. How did you get in this diary?  _ Her hands are still shaking. She knows she shouldn’t answer, her dads warnings still sitting heavy at the front of her mind. 

_ Well it’s a rather long story, Ginevra. I would love to tell it to you though.  _

⬷

She wakes up with a start. Chest heaving, sheets tangled around her legs. There’s a second where she stares blankly into the darkness, tears dripping down her cheeks. A second where she swears she can still feel that fucking diary under her fingers. A second right before she flings her arm out and sends everything on her bedside table crashing to the floor. Right before she digs her nails into her thighs and holds them there until she can see blood. Until she can feel something,  _ anything _ through the fucking want still clinging to her bones. 

_ I see you _ . 

Tom’s voice is still floating through her head. Voice gentle and sweet. 

_ I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone clearer.  _

She snarls, that was a lie. It was all lies. 

“I hate you.” she mutters, the words loud in the darkness of the room. “I wish I could have killed you myself.” the words fall flat and she falls back down onto the bed with a sigh. “I don’t. I don’t wish that I all.” she whispers, lets the moonlight in the corner swallow up the words. “I wish you were still here and that you meant what you said.” 

She stares at the ceiling, listens to the wind howling outside her window. It’s still dark out, which means she has at least a few more hours before her mum will be around to wake her up. 

“I’m about to start fifth year.” she whispers, hands clenched in the blankets. “I’ll be a year younger than you were before —”  _ before you tried to kill me. _ The tears are still falling down her cheeks. When will I stop dreaming about you, she wonders. When will I stop fucking missing you. 

“Sometimes,” she whispers, feels the word get caught in her throat. “Sometimes, I still wish I had died in that chamber.” she chokes out a laugh, digs her fingernails into her palms.  _ “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” _ she hisses, imagines that she can still feel parseltongue scratching at the back of her throat.

⬷

The first time she sees him, really sees him, he’s twelve years old, filthy, soaking wet, eyes too big in his face and it’s underwhelming. She is still too caught up in the loss that she can feel echoing through her veins. 

He had never been real to her before this. Just another title on a piece of paper. Another hero to look up to. 

_ The Boy Who Lived _ .  _ Harry Potter. Defier of death.  _

He had always been less of a person to her and more of a thought. A dream. A concept to write and wish about. She’d dreamed about being soulmates with him since she was old enough to understand what a soulmate was. Dreamed about the day he would really, truly see her. 

Now he’s here, sitting in the water on the chamber floor, robes dripping, shoulders slumped and she can’t even find it in herself to care. His eyes are bright. Fixed on her with an intensity that she can not understand. She almost got him murdered, he should not be looking at her like that, as if she has hope clutched in the palms of her hands. 

“He was in your head.” Harry says and she shivers, nods, tries to not let on that her brain still does not feel like her own. He cocks his head, studies her. “Is he still in your head?” he asks, voice curious but body tense. 

She hesitates, the words caught in her throat. Tom will always be in her head. She can feel him there now, that little voice  _ still _ at the back of her head. Whispering secrets. Whispering promises. It’s softer, fainter but still there. 

“Are you going to tell anyone?” she asks, after it becomes clear that she’s hesitated for too long. Harry’s eyes have narrowed too far to believe a lie now. 

He shrugs gracelessly, flopping backwards onto the ground. “Only if you try to kill me.” he says and she sighs in relief. 

Tom will always be in her head. She shudders to think of what she would do to the person who tries to take him from her.

⬷

Fifth year starts whisper quiet. The nightmares retreat and Ginny finds herself watching the forest, this creeping feeling of doom settling over her like a blanket. Luna keeps staring at her with wide eyes and Neville keeps slipping Lavender and Chrysanthemum into her pockets. The voice in her head has quieted down, exhausted from summer.

But even with the nightmares absent and Tom’s voice muted she still finds herself restless. Still finds herself seeing things out of the corner of her eye. Wonders if she’s destined to spend the rest of her life running from ghosts. 

It’s a month into the term when Harry finds her sitting at the top of the quidditch stands. Her skin has been crawling since she woke up. This feeling of  _ something _ coming. She’d woken from a restless sleep and from dreams of a black mist curling around her body, around her throat. 

She hasn’t been able to warm up since she stumbled out of bed and dragged herself up here. Even now, with the muggy air heavy against her skin, she still feels cold. 

Harry takes one look at her and sighs, anger flashing through his eyes. “Is he still whispering? He hasn’t run out of energy yet?” 

She shakes her head, burrows farther into the scarf she’s wearing. “He’s not saying anything.” she says, voice muted. “I keep waking up cold and with this sense of foreboding haunting me.” 

Harry sighs, closes his eyes and raises his face heavenward. His hair looks like ink in the sunshine and Ginny swallows down a whimper at how closely he resembles Tom. Sometimes, when Harry’s eyes are closed and his face is solemn, sometimes he looks so similar Ginny has to bite down sobs. 

Harry sighs again, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I feel it too. There’s something coming and it’s coming for us.” 

“It’ll have a hell of a time taking us though.” she says, smiles at the way Harry huffs in amusement. 

“I wish it didn’t want anyone else.” he hesitates, flicks a glance over. “I wish  _ he _ didn’t want you.” 

“He shouldn’t even know about me. Shouldn’t know that I still have some strange bastardized version of him in my head.” 

“You shouldn’t even still have him in your head.” Harry snarls, eyes flashing. “He should have died with the rest of him.”

She flinches before she can stop herself and hisses in annoyance when Harry’s eyes go sad. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t make that face at me.” she snaps, balling her hands into fists to try and hide the shaking. 

“What a mess we are.” Harry murmurs, laughs. The sound bright and haunting. “One of us destined to die at his hands. The other still being haunted by his ghost.” 

She laughs. Laughs and laughs until she fucking chokes on the laughter. Until the laughter turns to sobs. Harry leans against her, slips a hand into hers. 

“He’ll have to try harder than that to destroy us.” she chokes out, the tears salty on her tongue. 

Harry smiles, eyes still so fucking sad. 

⬷

Sometimes, when she’s talking with Harry, she’ll catch Ron or Hermione watching them. Ron always watches them, shoulders tense and eyebrows drawn together. Sometimes, she’ll catch his fingers flexing almost as if he’s wishing for a chess set to be in front of him. She hasn’t figured out a way to tell him that people are not chess pieces, are not things to be moved around. That no matter how much he dwells on it he cannot save her. Cannot save Harry. 

Hermione stares at them with sad eyes and clenched fists. Hair always sparking with magic and head tilted. She always looks like she’s trying to solve a really complicated homework problem and it makes Ginny sigh in the same way that watching Ron does. They both seem to think that if they think about it hard enough and plan carefully enough, that they can save them. Can save Ginny, can save Harry. 

She doesn’t know how to tell them that they’re wrong. 

She’d brought it up to Harry once and he had smiled fondly and told her to not worry about it. They worried but it was fine. Let them worry, let them care. 

Ginny doesn’t want to fix anything. She just wants to burn the whole world to ashes. 

_ I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone clearer. _

She thinks he’s right sometimes. He had stuck a hand into the guts of her and pulled at the truth. Had said  _ I see you, I see you, I see you--  _

She is going to make him regret ever even knowing her name. 

⬷

The boy in her dreams stares at her with sad eyes and upturned palms. Breathes the word sorry as if it’s his birthright. She does not know how to deal with a version of Tom Riddle who says ‘I’m sorry’ so easily. Does not know how to deal with any version of him that looks at her with clear eyes and shaking hands and grief etched into every curve of his body. 

The boy in her head snarks and snarls. Promises that he’ll get free against all odds. He taunts Harry and insults her family. He whispers her darkest fears back at her and she breathes in slowly, resists the urge to burn down the castle with herself in it. 

They’re not the same. The boy in her dreams and the boy in her head. They’re different versions of the same person, so intrinsically different that they can barely even be called the same person anymore. 

She doesn’t know why the dreams started. Doesn’t know why the universe is haunting her like this. She thinks sometimes about telling Harry about the dreams. He already knows about the voice in her head, perhaps he can help her shoulder this as well. The words always get caught in the back of her throat. 

She knows what the dreams mean. Knows what she’s going to see when she turns seventeen. 

There’s never been a choice for her. 

Once upon a time, a little girl gave a piece of herself away. Traced the curls of her name where he had written it and felt something desperate open up inside of herself. 

_ I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone clearer. _

He had seen her. Had twisted his hands into the guts of everything that made her and smiled. But she had seen him too. Had traced a finger through the mess that held Tom Riddle together. Had wrapped the strands of him around herself until it was impossible to determine where one began and the other ended. 

Once upon a time, there was a girl and a book and a curse. Like all good stories have. 

The girl took the curse and made herself a blanket of needles and thorns. Covered herself in it until the pain felt like home. The girl took the book and wrote in it with her blood. 

Once upon a time…. 

_ Here, let me be what you want me to be. Let me be what you need. Let me pretend that I will always be here, always, always, always. I will always be there until I am not. I will always be enough for you until I am not. Look, I am your saving grace. Your end all, be all. Look at the stars in my eyes and the moon in my hair. Look at the aconite I have coated my lips in for you. Look, look, look. I can be your church bells and your stained glass. Your mountain ridges and your riptides. I can be the ground beneath your feet and the air that you breathe. I can be the beginning, the middle, the end. I can be the blood in your veins and the skin that holds you together. Let me be you, let me be the only thing you ever, ever, ever need.  _

No. I will be own beauty, my own grace. I will hold myself together when my seams are breaking loose. And if I do need someone to help hold me together, well it will not be you. There is sunshine living underneath my skin and moonbeams leading my steps. There are asteroids hiding between my lips and tsunamis clutched between my fingers. I will be no ones but my own. Listen to the thorns hiding in my words and remember, I do not need you to save me. And even if I did need to be saved, I would not choose you to do the saving. 


End file.
